


Do wirewolves dream of being in electric sheep's clothing?

by Hello_Im_not_a_possum



Category: Buzz Lightyear of Star Command
Genre: And I'm sorry for that, Au where XL is accepted as a space ranger, Gen, I wrote the rough draft of this while waiting in lines at disneyland, I'm not writing a character just to kill him off, OR AM I? DUN DUN DUUUN, THIS SHOW IS ALMOST AS OLD AS ME AND I'M STILL SALTY ABOUT THE END OF REVENGE OF THE MONSTERS, Therefore this fic is the closest thing I have to being a writer for disney, aside from Nos because he's dead, because that's what he was BUILT FOR, coping with loss of humanity, giving a personality to a robot who very obviously was only there to die, guys does it count as graphic violence if it's happening to robots?, in the show not this fanfic, someone's gonna get hurt, tagging it as that just in case, this is gonna be fun, which is kinda sad
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-22
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-06-30 20:48:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15759414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hello_Im_not_a_possum/pseuds/Hello_Im_not_a_possum
Summary: After Nos-4-a2's attempt to take over the cosmos backfires so hard that he dies, Ty Parsec is still stuck with the curse because blowing up radioactive rocks doesn't do anything against the power of the fact there's still radiation on him BECAUSE SCREW CANON, I DO WHAT I WANT! THE WEREWOLF WAS TOO COOL OF AN IDEA TO THROW OUT AFTER ONLY TWO EPISODES OF USING IT!!! ...anyway, XL has to prove to commander Nebula that he is still good enough to be a space ranger as it's what he was built for. Ty, on the other hand, struggles with how his loss of humanity affects his potential to be a space ranger.





	1. This Vampire nasty, YEET

"NO! YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO OBEY ME! I AM YOUR DARK MASTERRRR!" Nos-4-a2 screamed desperately at the Wirewolf who did not give a single flying bolt about what the rust-bucket of a vampire had to say and in turn threw the vampire into the remains of that giant death laser that the wirewolf was trapped in a while ago. Nos-4-a2's chest was pierced so hard by such a large metal scrap that he exploded into a bunch of tiny robotic energy vampire bits.

 

The wirewolf stood triumphantly over the exploded remains of the energy vampire until Buzz Lightyear blasted the moon rock clear off his neck. The wirewolf growled at this new threat bearing his fangs at the space ranger, getting ready to pounce, "GOTCHA!" XL instead shot a net over the aggravated animalistic android which made him a lot angrier but also captured. As the wirewolf Howled and thrashed around in the small space the net gave, XL slung him over his shoulder.

 

Thankfully Mira and Booster had returned to normal, but it was a very long and downcast trip back to star command. Buzz paced the ship while Booster tried to "Jog Ty's memory" by excitedly telling the wirewolf about every adventure Buzz and Ty went on and interrupting his own story telling every five minutes with "You remember that, right?" and eagerly waiting for the animalistic android's response, which would either be a uninterested huff, "I'll take that as a yes!" or a sharp snarl "..I'll tell you another one then"

 

Said interruptions were annoying for XL, who was genuinely interested in the stories Booster was telling, was this what he was missing out on when he was denied his programing to become a space ranger?

 

Booster's story time did absolutely nothing for the wirewolf as the said beast didn't particularly care about the words the organic red thing was spouting at him and was far more interested in gnawing the robotic arms XR lost in the explosion and Wirewolf found. They were tasty arms but they barely touched his hunger and he knew the little robot's motherboard and power pack were far more fulling and delicious which made the arms taste slightly disappointing.

 

XR was as far way from the ex-ranger as he could be while still being on the ship and Mira was trying to keep him calm enough to not use the possibly busted escape pod. Technically, Mira didn't have to because XR still didn't have arms but hey, it was something to do. "L-Look, Ty the guy, great person! bit on the downer side, but hey better then having to deal with  **the circuit-chewing** _**METAL-MUNCHING ROBOT-RIPPER THAT WE HAVE IN OUR SHIP!!!"**_ "XL and Booster, have Ty under control, as soon as the LGMs find out what's wrong with him you will never have to face the curse of the wirewolf ever again."

 

The frightened robot ranger was only calmed by Mira's words for a solid three seconds until an awful realization struck him, "But if Ty's still one of those things, and Nos-4-a2 blasted star command with that wirewolf cannon, THEN WHAT IF THERE'S STILL WIREWOLF RANGERS ON THE BASE!" "well, I don't think that-" "Oh craters! Dad was blasted by that thing!  **my own father could try to rip me to pieces and eat me Mira!** _my own father..._ " "XR! Listen to me! there's no way in the galaxy the Commander will eat you, in fact, I'm pretty sure the only person who stayed a wirewolf was Ty"

 

"What makes you so sure about that? with our numbers here we're looking the fact that one third of everyone who was shot with at thing stayed a wirewolf!" Buzz Lightyear made his presence known in the best way possible: dramatic reveal with plot-relievnt information. "Because unlike everyone else, Ty's still in the woods because he was bitten, but there's also probably something about that moon rock from Canis Lunis... or, maybe it had something to do with being the power device on that machine..."

 

After that spiel Buzz went back to pacing deep in thought, he swore to himself that all the pieces of the puzzle were there but he just couldn't find how they fit together. This would make more sense after the LGMs looked at Ty and found whatever problem he still had that apparently the others didn't and removed whatever problem was in his circuits. Or so our heroic space ranger hoped for the best as he looked towards the approaching Star Command Base on the horizon.

 

The chilling howl from the wirewolf echoing throughout the ship reminded him that sometimes not everyone could come out unscathed. But at this point he just hoped his former partner would come out of this mess...


	2. this sucks, like a lot. -the godlike narrator speaking for the characters throughout the entire chapter.

Star Command was thankfully wirewolf-free, as was the rest of the universe... ...aside from the ONE ranger that without a shadow of a doubt caused the most destruction in the beastly form, while he was currently being contained (and hopefully cured). All in all this was not a good day for Commander Zeb Nebula, I mean it really sucks to discharge a good, hard-working ranger because of a terrible accident, it sucks even more to see that ranger get turned back into an awfully angry animalistic android then kidnapped by Nos-4-a2 and XL, BECOMING one of those things? losing his organic flesh and blood to metal and wires? don't even get him started on that but it does really suck, especially when he had already despised robots almost as much as he had despised paperwork.

 

Speaking of paperwork? this disastrous stunt that that pair (trio?) of rust-buckets was bound to result in more mountains of paperwork then what his desk was currently holding.

 

This had also sucked, for the LGMs. While it was a not secret passion of theirs to work with technology, ask literally anybody off the street and they will tell you that working with a violent, snarling, vaguely-wolf-shaped robot is not enjoyable. Especially when said robot is radioactive and could potentially turn either yourself or your other yous'/coworkers into violent, snarling, vaguely-wolf-puppy-shaped robots. Trying to cure the ranger of cyber-lycanthropy was easier said then done as while the source of the transformation was located, the moon rock remains was fused to the metal.

 

"Oh that doesn't seem so bad! just take the dust 'n stuff out of the metal" either a newly minted rookie ranger or a passerby janitor might suggest however, because the metal was currently his skin/flesh trying to remove it would, best-case scenario result in blood loss, scarred tissue that would never fully heal, an honorable discharge, and hopefully on behalf of the ranger: a lot of therapy appointments, and worst case scenario a very traumatizingly painful death that would scar the minds and souls of everyone who witnessed it/knew about it and change the rating of this work if I described it in detail.

 

However the LGMs weren't put on this "Fix this robot back into ranger Ty Parsec" job to sit around doing nothing. By the rings of saturn they were going to do something about this! then the idea hit all of them at once (as ideas for them always do): reprogramming.

 

Commander Nebula wasn't even bothering to read at the paperwork, sign here, initials here, next paper, repeat. It was a long and boring job that lasted a long and boring time and he was currently looking at a long and boring request from the LGMs regarding another robot ranger... ...wait just a diddly darn minute. He won't approve of this! dealing with just the renegade and the ranger who had basically sunk to renegade2.0 some days was bad enough and now the LGMs wanted to throw in a third robot ranger? A _third_ scatterbrained robot who, if it would be anything like it's "brothers" would be absolutely convinced in spite of logic that he was it's dad? absolutely not this is where he was putting his foot down. In fact he was going to march right down to the science bay to stop any progress the LGMs had made on future renegade robot ranger3.0

 

For ranger Ty Parsec today really sucked. His entire body felt drained and stiff, it felt like forever until he finally opened his eyes, and when he did his vision was all red, everything seemed off, waking up in the science bay wasn't a good sign, especially since the last thing that he clearly remembered was that energy vampire putting that moon rock around his neck, everything after that was like a horrible nightmare that he was already forgetting, for better or worse. Ty sat up and rubbed his aching head. Or tried to until he realized that he was tied down. He tried to call out for someone not he couldn't open his mouth, oh sweet craters why couldn't he open his mouth?! did a villain take over Star Command while he was out? was he being held hostage? he struggled against his binding like his life depended on it, if he was going down it wouldn't be like this!

 

Patient zero had awoken and it was time for the moment of truth, while the frantic struggling of the beast was eerily similar to how he had behaved before the reprogramming, all the LGMs had to do in this part was remove the muzzle. If the robot was truly still savage, then they would shut him back off and try again, if Ty was back and just riled up about his current situation then all would be well. The muzzle hesitantly undone then ripped off like a band-aid the terrified-but-still-trying-to-sound-calm, robotic-yet-almost-organic voice shouting "WHAT THE SWEET MOTHER OF VENUS HAPPENED WHILE I WAS OUT?!"

 

The fact everyone in the room responded by cheering was only all the more confusing but at least Ty's restraints were being undone. He raised his hand to rub a particularly sore spot on his face, then froze when he saw his "hand" it was a metallic claw with four digits. His other hand was near identical, he was panicking worse then before. Out of the corner of his eye he swore he could see a tail, "a million error messages on a million different things" _wasn't just an annoying computer occurrence anymore, **it was an emotion and he was feeling it.**_


	3. internal screaming, internal screaming everywhere

Marching to the science bay at a swift pace, Commander Nebula heard a near-deafening terrified scream coming from the area. Just because he knew he was right about a third robot ranger being a bad idea didn't mean he wanted to be proven right. He tightened his grip on the robot ranger approval paper in his hand and ran to the science bay. If the darned machine had already hurt somebody seconds after it had been activated he would throw the rust bucket in an incinerator himself.

 

After looking in a mirror confirming that he was indeed a robot, not something he could deal with like "oh this ranger lost his arms let's give him cool prosthetic arms" and "mistaking a stray wire for a tail" or maybe something like a really sick prank, Ty was desperately trying to keep himself together. It didn't help that his newly metallic form strongly resembled the monster in XR's recording, and "strongly resembled" truly meant "was Identical to". He saw the way the beast had just tore through XR like it was as easy as peeling an orange and had felt sick to his now metaphorical stomach.

 

The robots he worked with on a daily basis would be terrified to even look at him now, How in the galaxy was he supposed to do life-threatening missions for star comma- oh yeah he was fired. How in the galaxy was he supposed live a boring, space-adventureless life when he looked like a sci-fi/horror movie villain! "Sooorry this is all we cooould do" a familiar squeaky voice below him said sheepishly.

 

Ty looked down at the LGM who apparently had a hand in reprogramming him. Ty felt his heart (or hard drive? he couldn't tell as he'd never consciously been a robot before) sink when the LGM said that. "Buuut we did send Nebula paperwork to aprooove of your re-instatment." "Have you lost your minds?" Craters he hated how his new voice sounded, it was like his normal one but after inhaling evil helium. "you know how Nebula feels about robots!" While he would've loved to be back on the job, realistically the commander's claim of Ty being dangerous held more water when he was a re-programed robot who was one energy-vampire attack away from switching back to the dark side, even if it would be unwillingly.

 

Buzz put his arm on Ty's shoulder "Well Buddy you ...might physically be a robot, but deep inside there's still a heart of a space ranger and you know it." Ty rolled his eyes at Buzz's cheesy speech but it was impossible to tell because he didn't have pupils. "Yeah, I'm sure the second Nebula sees me he's sure to say 'yes Lightyear letting this thing be a part of star command is a great idea that won't backfire on us at all!'" Ty froze the second he realized when he was impersonating The commander his voice changed to sound just like Nebula's. "...Okay well that's new" "What in blazes is going on in here!" "Okay Ty, you can stop I get it." "That wasn't me." right behind the ranger and the ex-ranger stood the commander.

 

Perfectly mimicking Commander Nebula's voice would've been a lot less creepy for Ty if he was trying to do it on purpose. For Commander Nebula, having his voice being mimicked perfectly by something that looked like it backstabbed evil emperor Zurg the second it was built and escaped Zurg's evil lab would be a lot creepier if the said bucket of bolts wasn't making fun of him. It was hard for Nebula to believe the LGMs worked on this thing when it looked identical to the wirewolf issue that was dealt with today.

 

Ty's new tail twitched around nervously and his "fur" seemed to smooth down slightly while Nebula stared him down. "Alright who was the wise guy who came up with the idea to build this?" Nebula gestured to Ty "Nobody wanted to be caught in that wirewolf nonsense in the first place and nobody wants to remember it." "Uh Commander, that is Ranger Parsec." "what?" one of the LGMs handed Nebula a copy of the re-instatment paperwork. "in recognition of his fine work under extreme condition, re-instating Ranger Ty Parsec in spite of his robotic body-"

 

Nebula cocked an eyebrow as he flipped through the document, apparently in addition to getting the Wirewolf on star command, there was also a request to put XL on there too. "You sure about this Lightyear? this sounds like a recipe for disaster."


	4. and if you look in a dumpster fire, you can see my regard for canon

While Nebula and Buzz were discussing the robot ranger idea further, XR was getting repaired again, XL got his stolen body parts confiscated but was told that the LGMs were building him a new body that would be better suited for his new job, Ty stayed put in the science bay so that LGMs could run some more tests, things were fine until there was physical test to see if he was still capable of standard combat. When the robot opponents were introduced, Ty fought them as he would've fought as a human, until the wires came out.

 

He wasn't controlling them, or at least not consciously but he desperately needed energy and those robots seemed packed full of it. As long as he just drained and didn't damage the poor robots everything would be fine right? Just get some juice then continue the fight as normal. He took in a deep breath, wrapped his wires around one of the robots, the energy taken did relieve him of feeling tired but the wires weren't fast enough for his liking...

 

The rest of a battle was a blur for Ty, a blur of ripping metal, motor oil sprayed across the inside of his mouth and all over the room, wires and hardware were flying everywhere, someone screamed (most likely XR but he didn't know for sure), then got struck by something that drained him of the energy he just stole and blacked out. But before he did he could sworn he saw Buzz's concerned but disappointed face and commander Nebula not saying a word but looking at Buzz with a very "I told you so" style of expression.

 

_BANG BANG BANG_ "DON'T LEAVE IN HERE WITH THAT THING! IT'S GOING TO EAT ME ALIVE! I'M JUST HERE FOR REPAIRS NOT A RECHARGE!" What a terrible night to have a curse, and to be proven right about the robot thing. Looking around Ty seemed to be in the charging stations of the science bay, other robots aside from the screaming one where here but thankfully not on, one terrified robot begging for it's life was already too much guilt for him to deal with on top of all this other nonsense. He didn't even know what came over him, he swore he had it under control and just needed a boost. He didn't even want to eat those robots.

 

Trying to speak to the robot only made it worse " **GUYS! IT'S AWAKE GET ME OUTTA HERE! I DON'T WANNA BE WIREWOLF FOOD!** " the robot banged it's fists on the door harder and harder.  "I'm _not_ going to eat you!" Ty said sharply, crossing his arms while the robot turned back to glare at him "uh huh likely story, or am I more of a chew toy type?" "What? listen, I don't want you in, or anywhere near my mouth okay?" "Well you don't need to use your mouth to eat me do you?" the robot crossed his armed and huffed bitterly, then realized what he just said. " **LET ME OUT! IT'S GOING TO DRAIN ME _THEN_ USE ME AS A SCRATCHING POST!"**

 

As any sane person is aware, even in futuristic galaxies where there's aliens who phase through walls and read minds, and mechanical vampires who can turn a human being into a robotic werewolf with the right type of radioactive rock, it's still common sense to fix and recharge a robot when replacing it would cost more. The blessing of common sense is what had saved Sentry one from the fate of being permanently deactivated as sentry two was, but he had obviously had missed out on the entirety of the wirewolf fiasco. While other robots considered him lucky for not having to deal with getting mauled and eaten he was worried about Ty Parsec and Sentry-Two.

 

Every robot he had talked to either refused to talk to him about it or, worse just told him that they were sorry for his loss. A million "Bad End" scenarios of what had happened on those nights on Canis Lunis had overfilled his CPU so much that it lagged, the only bit of good news he heard since his reactivation was that Nos-4-a2 was blown up, but the robot who told him that had not given him any context for how the dreaded energy vampire exploded which made him worry that Ty went down with the monster.

 

Ty was Sentry-One's favorite organic to work with on the moonbeam project, mostly for the fact that Ty didn't treat him like a thing to order around like how most of the scientists did but rather treated him, and the other sentries like coworkers. Sure he wasn't a perfect coworker, his snark had often made him roll his eye LED a lot but-  _BANG BANG BANG_ what was that? A couple rooms over, Sentry-1 heard the very loud screaming and yelling, and had gone to investigate, was it flat-out stupid to go towards what sounded like the beginning of a horror movie? especially after recently being attacked by a vampire? yes but as a sentry, Sentry-1 was programmed to investigate suspicious activity and there was nothing more suspicious then that screaming.


	5. Error 404: willingness to believe what happened not found

_BANG BANG BANG_ Sentry-1 shined his flashlight on the door, revealing it to be the locked entrance to one of the charging stations around star command. _BANG BANG BANG_ In spite of his programming to investigate the suspicious activity, he really didn't want to go in there. _**BANG BANG BANG**_ Maybe he should call for backup first? His programming prevented calling backup without an identifiable danger, which was something that he really hated about this job. _**BANG BANG BANG**_

As the banging on the door got too frantic to ignore Sentry-1 hesitatingly unlocked and opened it. The second there was even a crack of the door opened a damaged robot scrambled out and bolted like he was being chased by every Vulturan in the known universe. The fleeing robot didn't even look back or say a word to Sentry-1, he just dashed like mad while screaming out for help and calling "THE MONSTER IS AWAKE AND OUT FOR OIL! RANGERS, WAKE UP AND GET YOUR LASERS!"

 

Monster? that didn't sound good. Sentry-1 could see a pair of bright red lights in the darkness, the rest of the mysterious threatening presence was obscured in its camouflage among the metal/deactivated robots and Sentry-1's nonexistent night vision. At least the banging stopped, but if whatever was in there was that terrifying, he really didn't want to go back to repairs, or worse be scrapped entirely. He internally wished he was patrolling a different area of star command but entered the foreboding room anyway.

"Please don't be like an energy vampire please don't be like an energy vampire please don't-" Sentry-1 thought to himself as he pointed his trusty flashlight on the monster. The beast flinched away from the light with a low growl only to then lunge at the unlucky robot. Tackled to the ground, flashlight rolled away, the snarling mechanical monster in his face, Sentry-1 thought he was done for. Until the beast's ears perked up as it appeared to recognize him "Sentry-1?" said a mechanical voice with a surprised tone that Sentry-1 wished he did not recognize but knew too well.

 

He was too shocked to move or even react at that moment. He's heard a less mechanical sounding version of that voice every day and night on the job when he was working on the moonbeam project at Canis Lunis. He's heard thousands of snarky remarks, dry wit, monotone directions that he repeated from the higher-ups, and the occasional bad pun from that voice. But it couldn't be his old coworker, it was impossible. Ty Parsec was an organic being and more importantly, a loyal space ranger would never try to attack anyone who was part of star command.

 

Disgusted, horrified, and embarrassed by his own action of tackling and almost eating his old coworker, Ty Parsec got off of the dazed sentry and brought him back up to his feet. "I'm sorry! I didn't know what came over me, I-I don't know why this is happening I swear I had it under control!" while he was partly saying this to reassure himself that he wasn't just about to consciously maul his mechanical coworker, it was mostly a genuine apology.

 

Sentry-1 snapped back into reality as Ty checked for any unintentionally caused damage (aside from a slightly scratched paint job and a dent nothing was found) "State your name, rank, and reason to be here." Sentry-1 stated flatly yet sternly as if he was talking to a new ranger that his sensors didn't recognize or a robot that he didn't know but did know that they weren't supposed to be in his area. "Ty Parsec, Ex-Ranger, placed here by the commander, waiting for further instructions" Ty replied with the same level of flatness and a pinch of confusion.

 

Sentry-1 shook his head solemnly "impossible, while nobody had verbally confirmed it, their reactions suggest that Ty Parsec had died from the energy vampire." Ty subconsciously cocked his head to the side in confusion. "How did I die?" Sentry-1 looked very uncomfortable and also sad, an impressive feat given he didn't have a face. "I assume the facility blew up, with you inside it but I was never given any information."

 

Discomfort and sorrow turned to slowly but surely boiling anger as this robot-attacking _thing_ pretended to be his most likely dead coworker who had died taking out the most notorious threat to robots since the Vulturans. "But I don't need the entire story for you to mock a dead ranger's fate by pretending to be him!"

 

Now knowing that he just needed to prove his identity further to reclaim Sentry-1's trust Ty calmly stated: "Around a month and two weeks before the energy attack went down, You tried to follow Sentry-2 to catch him sneaking off into the air vents but ended up falling into the garbage chute. It took three hours to dig you out of there, we broke the chute in the process and we had to lie about what broke the chute so we wouldn't get fired for breaking it."

 

Sentry-1 stepped back, anger in his voice replaced with quivering shock. Only he and Ty knew about that, "But how? just three days ago Ty Par- YOU weren't" he gestured to Ty's body "weren't _this thing_ " "Long story short, you were right about needing backup."


End file.
